Marlin I (SS-205)
1941-1945
A large game fish.
(SS‑205: displacement 825 (surfaced), 1,179 (submerged); length 238'11"; beam 21'8"; draft 12'1" (mean); speed 16.0 knots (surfaced), 9.0 knots (submerged); complement 38; armament 1 3-inch, 1 .50 caliber machine gun, 6 21-inch torpedo tubes; class Mackerel)
The first Marlin (SS‑205), an experimental submarine, was laid down by on 23 May 1940 at Portsmouth, N.H., by the Portsmouith Navy Yard; launched on 29 January 1941; sponsored by Mrs. John D. [Jane] Wainwright, the wife of Rear Adm. John D. Wainwright, Commandant of the Portsmouth Navy Yard; and commissioned on 1 August 1941, Lt. George A. Sharp in command.
After service in the Atlantic Fleet out of New London, Conn., Marlin departed New London on 21 March 1942 for Casco Bay, Maine. She arrived the next day for duty with Task Group (TG) 27.1, training new escort vessels in antisubmarine warfare. She returned to New London on 18 April, and operated in Long Island Sound through 1942. During that time, Marlin portrayed the fictional submarine Corsair during the making of the Twentieth-Centruy Fox motion picture "Crash Dive," starring Tyrone Power, Anne Baxter, and Dana Andrews. Parts of the movie were filmed at New London.
On 7 January 1943, Marlin arrived in Casco Bay for further duty with TG 27.1 until the 16th. She then spent the next two and a half years patrolling and training ships off New London and Portsmouth, N.H. On 26 July 1944, while making a submerged practice approach on the escort vessel Chaffee (DE-230), she collided with the submarine chaser SC‑642 with slight damage to both ships. In September, Marlin kept company with the tug Chetco (AT‑99) on one of her trips from Portsmouth, reaching New London on the 10th.
On 25 October 1945, Marlin departed New London with Skipjack (SS‑184) for Bridgeport, Conn., arriving that day. Five days later she continued on to Boston, Mass., arriving on 31 October. She was decommissioned at the Boston Navy Yard on 9 November 1945, and was stricken from the Navy Register on 28 November 1945.
Ex-Marlin was sold on 29 March 1946 to Boston Metal Co., Baltimore, Md., for scrapping.
Updated, Robert J. Cressman
18 April 2024
